Ahead of the Gray's Reef film fest, which kicks off Friday evening, I got a chance to talk to one of the film directors. John Bruno directed DeepSea Challenge Expedition, which chronicles the attempt of renowned filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron to get to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench near (well, realtively) Papua New Guinea. Bruno will be available for a Q & A session after the film screens Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Lucas Theatre, 32 Abercorn Street.

Every year around this time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency releases info from its Toxic Release Inventory, a program that pretty much does what its name says. Companies self report the quantities of each of the toxic substances they've released to the environment. EPA lists as reportable 594 individual chemicals and 30 chemical categories.

Tybee's upcoming Polar Bear Plunge got me thinking about the location of Mary Lee, a great white shark equipped with a satellite transmitter who has been pinging her location for all to observe for more than two years now. Around last New Year's Eve she surfaced off Tybee, leaving many local wags to comment about her hanging around for the plunge. She didn't, or at least she didn't make a buffet out of it.

I blogged yesterday about the rescue of a cold-stressed manatee from a lagoon at Imperial Sugar. It turns out there were two manatees spotted, but only one was captured and driven to SeaWorld in Orlando, where it's recuperating.

The other one was first sighted at Weyerhaeuser on Dec. 8 by mill staff.

A manatee rescued from the Savannah River on Monday is rehabilitating at SeaWorld in Orlando.

Wildlife officials were alerted to the animal’s presence near the outflow pipe from the Weyerhaeuser paper mill on the river in Port Wentworth. Manatees are attracted to warm water but can get “thermally trapped,” said Chuck Hayes with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

With aerial surveys in full swing now from Savannah to Cape Canaveral, it's no surprise that researchers saw two more right whales on Tuesday. These two, shown here, are both adult females and hopes are that they'll both give birth. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission researchers spotted them off Amelia Island, making them the first sighting in Florida for the season.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration today posted a wrap up of electric vehicle registrations. The accompanying map really tells the story for Georgia, where a strong tax incentive of up to $5,000 state tax credit for purchase or lease of an electric vehicle has propelled electric vehicles forward. Notice the Peach State has the darkest blue in the South, indicating electrics make up 2-3 of every 1,000 vehicles registered.

The Savannah Tree Foundation's tool trailer went missing from its usual parking spot in JT Turner Construction's lot on East Victory Drive. Before the tree-planting nonprofit even knew it was gone, executive director Karen Jenkins got a call Nov. 24 from metro police asking if she'd come get her trailer abandoned on the side of Dean Forest Road near the police horse stable.

This photo arrived in my inbox today. It was taken by herpetologist Dirk Stevenson at Fort Stewart and goes with an upcoming story he's written about salamanders in coastal Georgia. But the way this big Eastern tiger salamander seems to be smiling made me smile, making it just too cute to tuck away until later. Enjoy!